


Word Salad

by onewithroses



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Brain Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:26:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onewithroses/pseuds/onewithroses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick is injured. Inspired by art by <a href="http://kaciart.tumblr.com/post/26619420022">Kaciart</a> and the song <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucGGHWmDJl0">Cinnamon</a> by The Long Winters</p>
            </blockquote>





	Word Salad

**Author's Note:**

> It doesn't make much sense--and in some ways it's not supposed to. I typically write in the surrealist style but, in this case, I didn't. So its pretty choppy and woefully unedited.

Tim is awake when he hears the low slide of bed sheets and a muddled sound that might have been a curse on a better night. It's six am, more morning than night if he's being honest, but any movement from the bed is a bad thing and right on time Dick is out of bed in a befuddled pile of blankets and pain.

"Dick." The exasperation is fond, if worn, and Tim sinks to eye level. Cloudy, still. He decides his brother won't remember this in the morning and, as if to confirm his conclusion that he's going to have to calm and coddle his older brother back into his own bed--Dick reaches over and tangles his fingers into Tim's shirt collar.

Before this he had been dressing. Meetings in the morning and he was the only one who could go. Dick's fingers pop a two buttons and Tim gently removes them. He cups the offenders between own hands--trapping them.

"Some where you are." Dick's fingers are thick and clumsy--prodding at the edge of his palms. His words are worse. "Keeping chase."

He hasn't made sense since they got him back. Head trauma is never pretty--but its worse when there's a thousand questions that can't be answered. At least without word salad they could answer his questions repeatedly, gently, clearly.

Instead of.

"The birds all were quiet."

"Yes, Dick." Tim glances to the window, where the sun is rising and signaling the new day. "Our coms were knocked out."

"Proof--listen to my feet." Drooping blue eyes--so full of the night and confusion that they look gray. "I gave them a heart. I drew them messages."

"Damion is okay, Dick. You got us there and you're safe." Tim presses his lips to the side of Dick's head. It's dry and tastes of bandages and gauze. Antiseptic. "We found your files. We found you both."

"Some where you are. Do you remember?" The look on his face is so severe it would worry Tim if this wasn't a repeat from two hours ago and an hour before that. "Collectors keeping it straight."

"I found you." He brushes the hair from Dick's face and then puts an arm under the other man's shoulder. Up--he has to get Dick back in bed again, though he knows Dick will be all dead weight and coltish limbs. It's sometimes easy to forget how easily someone can be grounded and laid low. He won't be forgetting this anytime soon. "Jason went after the punks--who scattered when we got there. Damian and I stayed with you."

"Proof--statues in the battle field." The words are broken up with a sharp cry of surprise as Dick's floating ribs jar against the bed. Dick hasn't remembered a single conversation that night his body remembers what's happened at every move. He sinks into the sheets, "Know them all. Spoke up."

"No one died." Tim draws back, not to leave but to pull distance between them and Dick reaches out as though starved to drag him back down. His dress shirt is crushed against his brother's chest--sticky with ill sweat--and Tim swallows at the little skip his heart gives.

Dick could have died.

Dick doesn't seem to know it. He cards his fingers through Tim's hair, eyes closed once more. The words he's muttering almost don't matter they're so slurred. "Please start, Timmy, please start."

"I'll be back by the time you wake up." Tim can promise that.

The worst is that even if he isn't, Dick won't remember.


End file.
